


The Future She Deserved

by artemisaro



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 00:08:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17151590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artemisaro/pseuds/artemisaro
Summary: When the Doctor met Yasmin Khan, she liked her immediately. But upon realizing she knew Yaz's grandson she must make a choice - her happiness, or Yaz's future.Part of Thasmin Secret Santa 2018!





	The Future She Deserved

The Doctor had met a lot of people in her lifetime. Too many to count, if she were being honest with herself. There was no way to keep track of the millions of faces she’d seen and the millions of conversations she’d had. There were people that had stuck with her, sure. They were the type of people that she couldn’t imagine never meeting. The number of people she wished she hadn’t met was much, much smaller. Even her enemies had helped her grow, had taught her hard lessons even at the expense of the people she cared about. She wouldn’t unmeet Missy, or Me, or anyone else along those lines, even if she’d been given the choice.

There was one person she wished she could unmeet. One person she wished she could warn herself against saying hello to, against knowing that said person existed: Prem Khan. Not because he was a bad person, or because he’d done something awful. It was just that his existence spelled danger for the Doctor. The Doctor could never fall in love with Yasmin Khan.

\---

Earth. 2018. It was easier for the Doctor to keep track of her regenerations if she first came to Earth, slightly later than she had last go around. So 2018 was the best year to choose. It wasn’t that she’d never been before, just that it felt like a good starting place. Sheffield. And a problem. She loved problems.

Aliens, to be sure, like it usually was. There were far too many of those hanging around 21st century England, and many of them rather malevolent. The Doctor couldn’t stand for that. Earth may not have been her home, but she had made it her planet to protect. Humanity was her mission. It always had been.

It was a mission she was getting good at. Humanity didn’t really need all that much protection, except from themselves. The Doctor only had to step in when things were heating up too much, but really humanity possessed enough ingenuity deal with things on their own. Maybe that was why the Doctor found it so easy to fall in love with humans. She’d loved them for as long as she could remember. Their brilliance, their feelings, their short lives that seemed as fulfilling to them as any twelve of a Time Lord’s. She loved them all.

Stepping out of her TARDIS in Sheffield in the middle of 2018 just gave the Doctor a reason to love them a little bit more. It was grey and cloudy, which wasn’t surprising, and the Doctor could hear the sounds of the city in the distance. Busses and cars and the shrieks of laughter coming from a school not too far away. She took a deep breath, closing the TARDIS door behind her and moving in towards the city.

It wasn’t difficult to tell where there was a problem. If the Doctor hadn’t received a distress signal, she would have been able to tell by the sound of sirens and the rising plume of black smoke.

“Miss, I have to ask you to please back away.” The voice belonged to a young woman with dark skin and darker hair that was pulled back into a disheveled braid. Her eyes skimmed over the Doctor, kind but concerned as the Doctor attempted to evaluate the situation. Flashing a smile, the Doctor pulled out her psychic paper and showed it to the young woman.

“Sorry for any confusion, I believe I am supposed to be here? I was called in.”

The young woman looked at the psychic paper for a long moment before finally nodding and pulling the Doctor to the side, away from the growing crowd of pedestrians.

“My apologies, miss, I didn’t know they’d called anyone else in. My name is Yasmin Khan. I’m only a junior police officer, they don’t tell us much.”

“Nice to meet you, Yaz… do people call you Yaz? I call you Yaz now. What exactly is going on here?”

“Did they not give you a briefing?”

“I’m afraid not.” The Doctor flashed another smile, looking to Yaz expectantly for some sort of explanation.

“Truth is, we don’t really know. This thing just appeared here and started smoking and someone called it in. We’re worried it might be toxic to people, and we don’t want to break it open. I’m guessing that’s why they called you in.”

The Doctor peered over Yaz’s shoulder, catching a quick glimpse of the object in question. It wasn’t something she had seen before, but it didn’t look like it belonged on Earth. Which was exciting. She took one look at her own psychic paper, trying to gauge exactly what it had told Yaz. An expert on _something,_ she was sure.

“That would be why I’m here,” the Doctor replied, grabbing Yaz’s hand and moving closer in to the object. “It looks like an egg of some sort,” she observed, pulling out her sonic and passing it over the strange object. “There’s something inside.”

There were other police officers milling around, and the Doctor looked up to see Yaz shrugging at another young woman who was looking in their direction. Nobody else had come so near to the object, whatever it was.

“Well,” the Doctor murmured, rubbing her hands together as she prepared to get nearer in. “This is a rather exciting problem, don’t you think?”

\---

The Doctor had been able to move the object into the TARDIS, but not before making sure it wasn’t volatile or anything of the sort. Yaz was waiting outside, speaking to another officer, probably clarifying the situation. The Doctor could tell right away that she liked her.

If the situation had been better, she’d have invited Yaz actually into the TARDIS, but Yaz had been talking to someone that the Doctor hadn’t met yet and she hadn’t felt like interrupting. Besides, she’d described the TARDIS as a “place for safekeeping.” Sort of as a temporary place. Something that didn’t really require more than one person going in.

Besides, the Doctor needed a moment to reflect. Yaz looked unbelievably familiar, though the Doctor couldn’t quite place why. She was quite certain that she’d remember meeting someone like Yaz, but she couldn’t. Of course, she couldn’t remember every single person she’d met, but she could usually remember the ones she liked and the ones she really disliked. It was odd to forget the face of someone she took a liking to so quickly. Yet… she’d been alive a long time. It was entirely possible Yaz was someone she’d met way back during her first or second generation and she’d have almost no recollection of her. There wasn’t time to reflect on this, as the angry beeping of the TARDIS seemed to remind her. Taking a deep breath, the Doctor stepped out of the police box again.

“How do you know someone won’t steal it?” Yaz asked, crossing her arms.

“It’s locked,” the Doctor replied, pulling at the door to the TARDIS for proof. “I’ve got the key.” It was a wonder that nobody had every wandered into the TARDIS before, when she’d been a little less careful about leaving it locked all the time.

“Do you know what it is?”

“I haven’t a clue! I think it’s exciting,” the Doctor grinned. “Isn’t that exciting?”

Yaz seemed almost reluctant to show her excitement, but it was there. There was no question about that. She cast a glance at the police box before crossing her arms and nodding. “Thanks for you help, Doctor.”

“Well… Yaz… I’m not quite sure how to deal with it yet. ‘Course I could figure it out by myself, and I love a mystery, but I have to admit I prefer to solve mysteries with company.”

“You… want me?”

“’Course! Why not?”

Yaz hesitated a moment before a smile spread across her face and she nodded. “I’m in.”

“Wonderful!” The Doctor snapped her fingers and the door to the TARDIS opened – a feature that she would never tire of. “Ladies first.” She hesitated a moment before remembering. “Right, I am a lady. Still, you first.”

With one look of confusion at the Doctor, Yaz stepped through the door, pausing as soon as her eyes landed on the massive room on the inside.

The Doctor squeezed past her, grinning as she took in Yaz’s look of wonder. Her eyes were skimming across the control panel, to the hallways leading off into the inner workings of the TARDIS. There was always something beautiful in the way they looked, like they had never seen anything like it.

“You can say it,” the Doctor prompted, leaning against the control panel. Yaz met her eyes for a brief moment before she was captivated by the machine once again.

“It’s bigger on the inside,” the murmured in awe, taking a small step forward, nearer to the control panel. “What is this? Was the police box just the front of a larger building, or…?”

The Doctor shook her head. “That’d be boring. This is just the TARDIS. Go on, step outside.”

Yaz hesitated another moment before exiting out the door and taking several steps back. The Doctor poked her head out while Yaz circled the machine, taking in the beauty and the wonder of it. She stepped back inside, past the Doctor.

“Beautiful, isn’t she?” The Doctor asked, her hand on the lever. “She can take us anywhere, especially if I… oh!” With a start, she fished the object out of a small box she’d lain near the center console. She hummed to herself as she fastened the object to the TARDIS, moving a couple knobs and pushing a couple buttons before she turned back towards Yaz. “She can take us to where this thing is from, based on the energy signature!”

Yaz’s brow furrowed and she took a step in. “How?”

“Science,” the Doctor smiled. “Care to pull the lever?”

The look in Yaz’s eyes was suspicious for a brief moment before she looked around again and shook her head, as if to shake some of her thoughts away. The Doctor wished she could know what the junior police officer was thinking, but finally Yaz nodded. She ran up towards the console and met the Doctor’s eyes before pulling the lever. The TARDIS began to make its familiar whirring noise.

“Hmm…” the Doctor murmured, pulling a screen towards her and examining where they were headed. “Seems like there’s something over here… not on Earth, though that shouldn’t surprise me… oh… oh it’s turning around! Strange for it to do that…” she looked back up, catching sight of Yaz staring, wide-eyed, at the screen as well.

“You’re telling me, we’re going somewhere? And it might not even be on Earth?”

“Right, I should’ve been a bit more explicit. This… thing… I’m not sure what it is yet, never seen anything like it… but this thing is alien. And I’m gonna find out why it’s here.”

The object, still glowing a sickly shade of yellow, had stopped smoking, which was a small comfort to the Doctor. Either it wasn’t going to explode anymore, or it was just doing something else – something quite possibly more deadly and dangerous. Either way, it was vital that they found where it came from.

“Right then,” the Doctor said, pressing a few buttons again and pulling the object – dimmer, now – away from where she’d plugged it in. “Seems like we’re here. Still 2018 on Earth, just… not in Sheffield anymore.”

The door to the TARDIS swung open, and the Doctor watched Yaz as she peered outside. She couldn’t describe why, but she liked the idea of seeing Yaz as she experienced this. It was different with every companion, sure. Some of them enjoyed the past, others the future, some enjoyed Earth more, some other planets, but the joy they had when they saw the things they wanted to see had always made traveling worth it for the Doctor. She couldn’t describe why Yaz was different, why she wanted to impress her. Of course the Doctor had always had a bit of a flair for the dramatic, but this was… this was different.

“Looks like a forest,” Yaz observed, turning back. Her braid had become slightly more disheveled. “My grandmother used to tell me about Pakistan, when it was like this. I always wanted to see it.”

The Doctor bounded over, leaning over Yaz’s shoulder to get a better view. “It’s beautiful,” she murmured, moving past Yaz to step foot on the soil. “The translator might be a little faulty right now, but it’ll catch on. You just haven’t been in the TARDIS long enough for it to… well, work perfectly.”

Yaz sent the Doctor a look of confusion before shrugging it off. Obviously things had been strange enough that she wasn’t going to question a translator. The Doctor hoped the TARDIS had been calibrated well enough to help Yaz even after such a short time on board. It had worked in the past, and it hadn’t worked in the past. It had a tendency to be rather wonky.

\---

Nothing had happened with the object. It wasn’t smoking or glowing anymore, even as the Doctor carried it with her. They’d found nobody in the forest. It seemed for a while as though they had reached a complete dead-end. But the Doctor wasn’t put out and Yaz was curious, and that in and of itself was enough to go on.

It was on the fifth hour of wandering that the Doctor heard Yaz calling for her from a few meters away. She had heard something. The Doctor joined her, ear pressed to the side of a towering tree. It was out of place. A beautiful pine in a never-ending sea of deciduous trees. Something was happening here, and Yaz had heard it.

The Doctor made the mistake of letting her eyes meet Yaz’s as she listened. The sound seemed less important suddenly. The Doctor had admired humans before. She’d fallen for them. But Yaz had closed her eyes and was trying to decipher words, and her brow was furrowed and her disheveled hair was trailing over the side of her shoulder, and she seemed stunning in that moment.

“What’s in there?” Yaz asked, eyes opening. “Can’t you scan it with the thing you used on the… the smoking thing?”

“Sonics don’t work on wood,” the Doctor replied, her voice mildly frustrated. “But I think the thing might alive. Or at least partially. See, there was something moving in it – there still is, but it’s not trying to get out anymore.”

Yaz had moved away from the tree and was looking at something off in the distance. “Doctor… where are we? I mean really… I know we moved somewhere and it seems impossible but we did… but _where_?”

“We could leave it out here, but we don’t know what kind of creature it is and reuniting it without talking to whoever put it there might be… hm?”

“Doctor, where are we?”

“Somewhere in Europe for sure. Why do you ask?”

“It just seems familiar. I don’t know why.”

It seemed familiar to the Doctor as well, though she couldn’t quite place it. She’d been a lot of places, and a lot of them had a tendency to look fairly similar.

“Well… I’ve an idea,” The Doctor began, changing the subject and turning her attention back towards the tree. “How ‘bout we knock?”

Yaz considered for a moment before shrugging and rapping on the wood. Whatever chatter had been occurring inside ceased for a long moment before an opening in the wood creaked open, much to the Doctor’s delight. She really needed to find a time to add a wood setting to her screwdriver.

The creatures that were inside the “tree” had large eyes and yellow horns – antlers, really – that curved up and glowed the same way the strange object had. The taller of the two reached out a curved hand towards the object, but the Doctor pulled it back.

“Who are you?” She asked, meeting the aliens’ gaze squarely.

“That is ours,” the alien spoke slowly, its mouth opening to reveal rows of sharp, elegantly curved teeth.

“What is it?”

“It’s an egg,” Yaz whispered to herself before she finally caught the Doctor’s eye. “It’s an egg, it’s got to be.”

“Please,” the alien rumbled, their hand retreating.

“We’ve got to give it back,” Yaz insisted. The Doctor met the gaze of the aliens once more before surrendering the item with a pleading look from Yaz.

\---

“I want you to stay in the TARDIS. I mean… travel with me, if you’d like. You don’t have to, but the offer’s open.” The Doctor had landed the TARDIS back in Sheffield, where they’d begun. People were passing off the object as some thing from a sci-fi obsessed kid. Or something. The Doctor leaned against the police box, her gaze flickering up to meet Yaz’s. Yaz had already proven herself to be intelligent, kind, and trusting of people’s better nature. Able to make the right choice. It had been a simple thing. Not a threat, but something important. And the Doctor hadn’t been able to tear her eyes from Yaz since. She would never force anyone to travel with her against her will. But she really hoped Yaz would say yes.

The moments that followed, before Yaz gave a real response, were some of the longest the Doctor had ever felt.

“May I choose the first location?”

The Doctor grinned and swung the door open for Yaz.

\---

The next few months were some of the best The Doctor had ever experienced. She picked up a crew of two more – Graham and Ryan rounding out a crew larger than she’d had in a very long time. She found she liked it quite a bit. They helped people together, did everything that the Doctor had been trying to do since she had first spent time on Earth.

Better even than a large crew and a way to fulfill her goal was Yasmin Khan. She was everything the Doctor failed to be at times. She was everything the Doctor had tried to be, and had fallen just short of in her worst moments.

The way her eyes lit up when she saw someone she admired, or something that she had never imagined she’d discover. The way she spoke with people who came from outside of her immediate world – the kindness she gave them. The understanding she brought with her. The way she was afraid, sometimes, but she never let her fear stop her. She wasn’t suspicious of other people the way the Doctor often had been in her past lives. The Doctor had a lot to learn from Yasmin Khan.

There were specific memories that came to mind as the Doctor reflected on those few, perfect months of her life.

Yaz’s hand, soft and warm in hers as she grabbed it and ran forward towards a spaceship and a problem. Yaz’s hair falling in her face as she spoke of her grandmother and her family. The sparkle in her brown eyes as she told a joke.

Yaz, surrounded by fireworks as the blues and greens and reds reflected off of her hair at a celebration on another planet. Yaz, dancing with her eyes closed to the music she had been playing in her room of the TARDIS, unaware that the Doctor had come to call her to tell her they’d arrived at their most recent destination. Yaz, not caring and pulling the Doctor in to dance.

Yaz, sweat dripping down her face as she sprinted towards a distant monument, always a few steps ahead of the Doctor because the Doctor made it her duty to always be last. It was a way to stop her from losing anyone.

Yaz, her brow creased, deep in philosophical and heated debate with a man from the 20th century who didn’t believe in a female police officer. Yaz, placing herself in harms way to stand up for Ryan or Graham or even the Doctor on occasion.

Yaz, alone on a rooftop with the Doctor, wind blowing through her hair as snow began to fall. Small flakes landing on top of Yaz’s knitted wool hat, remaining for the smallest moment before disintegrating. The expression she wore when she told the Doctor that she had never expected any of this to happen to her. When she told the Doctor that she had never had friends – at least not good ones – before stepping into the TARDIS.

The way those snowflakes seemed to hover in midair as the Doctor shook her head. As she said something that made Yaz blush, then the split second with the frozen world and the look in Yaz’s eyes as the Doctor leaned forward, cradling Yaz’s face in her hand and telling her that _There had been nobody like her within the TARDIS. And that she was marvelous and brilliant and worth everything she feared she was not._ The distance as the Doctor pulled away, then the instant where Yaz met her eyes and pulled her back.

The Doctor’s hand pressed into Yaz’s beautiful braided hair, her fingers tugging loose some of the strands. Their lips, met together for the briefest moment before Yaz pulled away. The panic and confusion in those brown eyes until the Doctor pulled her back and kissed her again.

The stunning realization that the Doctor had fallen in love with Yasmin Khan. And the crushing revelation that she understood why Yaz had seemed so familiar the first time she’d seen her.

\---

The Doctor could remember Prem Khan in vivid detail. A kind young man with Yaz's same smile - with her intelligence and moral compass as well. She'd met him only once, on holiday. When she was a different person. He'd helped her investigate a particularly intriguing series of crimes just around Bath. She could recall him showing her a picture of his grandmother when she asked why he had chosen to help her. Those shining brown eyes and the laugh that seemed perpetually frozen in the picture. The Doctor remembered that picture in detail, remembered the face of a woman she had no right to fall in love with. A woman she'd fallen in love with anyway.

Yasmin Khan was going to have a grandchild. A brilliant one, true, but a grandchild. Which meant that the Doctor had messed everything up. The Doctor should never have fallen in love with Yasmin Khan. She had to fix it, before the future the Doctor had seen was gone. 

\---

            It was Christmas. Christmas in a foreign place. The Doctor had chosen someplace special for her last trip with Yaz. Because it had to be her last trip. She couldn’t interrupt a path that was laid out before Yaz. An extraordinarily happy path. The Doctor couldn’t think of the last time one of her companions had truly gotten a happy ending. Graham and Ryan had left, back to Sheffield, to continue on with their lives. Yaz deserved the ending she had been promised by fate, the instant the Doctor saw that photograph. It was a difficult decision.

“Open your eyes,” The Doctor whispered, leading Yaz out of the TARDIS. A sprawling, beautiful market lay before them, with people chattering softly under their breath. The first ever Christmas market at Strasbourg. It wasn’t religious, and it was special, which fit exactly what the Doctor wanted to give to Yaz for her last trip. Not that Yaz knew it was the last one.

“It’s amazing,” Yaz gasped, her eyes widening and her lips widening into that huge, unabashed smile of hers. The Doctor had seen her grow so happy during her time in the TARDIS. It nearly killed her to know that to secure this happiness for Yaz forever, she would never be able to be a part of it.

“I thought you’d like it. I got you a gift,” The Doctor said, pulling out a rusty-orange and gold colored beaded bracelet. A final gift. A teleport to Sheffield, January 1, 2019. The Doctor wouldn’t tell Yaz that.

“It’s beautiful,” Yaz smiled, pulling the Doctor into a hug. The Doctor’s own smile was bittersweet, her heart pounding in her chest at the thought of having to be alone once again. The snow was beginning to fall, just like it had that night of their first kiss. It rested like jewels on Yaz’s hair, pulled up in a way the Doctor had never seen before on Yaz. It suited her.

“Why did you take me here?”

“We deserved a bit of a holiday, didn’t we?”

“Is this a date?”

“I’ve always had trouble with dates. Is this one? Haven’t been on one in a long _long_ time,” The Doctor replied, squeezing Yaz’s hand where it hung, clasped in hers.

“I think it’s a date.”

They walked in silence for a bit, taking in the sights and sounds and smells of the market. Lots of things smelled like Christmas to the Doctor, many of them quite pleasant. This place, above all, smelled cozy and warm and comfortable in a way the Doctor had felt since she’d first met Yaz. It reminded her painfully of the girl who stood in front of her, eyes creasing as she smiled, engaged deep in conversation with one of the locals who was selling some sort of warm drink. Yaz had no idea.

Still smiling, with a crown of snowflakes still caught in her hair, Yaz slipped her hand back into the Doctor’s and handed her a warm drink. It smelled of cinnamon and was just warm enough to bring feeling back into her free hand without scalding it.

Walking side by side, they reached a place that was more isolated than the rest of the market. A small gazebo, turrets up top trying to reach towards the sky. The Doctor set down her drink and turned. She lifted her hand and gently caressed Yaz’s face, memorizing every detail. She kissed her once on the forehead, having to stand on her tip-toes to reach, then let herself kiss Yaz for real for just a few moments.

“I love you, Yasmin Khan.” The words were quiet and gentle, almost an unheard plea. Words the Doctor had never said just like that. Not in the way she meant them now. Her left hand was poised on her sonic screwdriver, centimeters away from the bracelet she’d given Yaz.

“I love- ” Yaz couldn’t respond before the Doctor flicked on the sonic. The teleport activated. Yaz faded away. Her cup of cider fell, hitting the ground with a soft thump. The warmth that had been Yaz was empty and cold air.

“Merry Christmas, Yaz,” the Doctor whispered. It was the best gift she could give to Yaz: the future she deserved. “Merry Christmas.”


End file.
